"Commander! The reinforcements have arrived!" The radar officer informed Leia. 'Just in time.' She thought. Leia looked out of the bridge of her Cruiser as the mighty Scutum and two dozen corvettes and six light cruisers lined up alongside her. "Establish contact." She ordered. The holo terminal lit up with him on the other side. "Leia." He greeted me. "Hello." She replied with a smile. "Go to the back for resupply." He ordered. Her task force moved back to the class four transports in the back of his fleet.
"What is the strategy?" She asked. "You position your pair of cruisers in a way that your deflector shields cover the prow of the Scutum except the super heavy cannon." He explained. "And you set full power to it?" She asked. "Precisely." He replied. "When do we start?" She said with enthusiasm. "Patience. Resupply will take a few days then we can start the assault on the shipyards." He cautioned. "As you see fit." She said with a sigh.
Following full resupply, she had her crew and herself fully rest before moving into position for the assault.
"Divert all power to the cannon and Fire!" Sigil ordered with enthusiasim in his voice in an attempt to boost the morale of his crew. The cannon of the Scutum began its firing sequence. Its reputation for blowing up star destroyers, earned it the name 'Star popper'. The star popper continued its hammering of the shield until it began glowing red and faded. The next bolt slammed into a second deflector shield however. The onslaught however didn't pause and as the star popper was about to push through the second, the first one appeared. "Pause!" He ordered. "This won't work." He stated. "Something wrong?" Leia asked. "Yes this shield will regenerate no matter our hammering." He explained. "Maybe we could use asteroids to weaken it." Leia suggested. "Genius!" He declared. "Lieutenant Qishik, order three Arquitens to bring me asteroids with their tractor beams." He stated. "Yes sir." He replied. Three days later, five large asteroids were dragged back from other parts of the system.
"What do I say sir?" Qushik questioned. "Tell them to thrust forwards then point their prow up before releasing their lock. Also have the cannon ready to fire." He replied.
Within a few minutes, the asteroids slammed into the shield around the shipyards and overrode it's limits as the first layer faded and the second one got critical but couldn't regenerate as star popper did away with it and struck the mega structure. In a few short minutes, the structure had melted as his gun made a viewpoint all the way through to the surface.
"Order all ships to lock their beams on the right side of the shipyards' melted edge." He said. "What is your plan?" Leia said, questioning his sanity. "You'll see." He reassured.
"Sir all ships have reported a lock." Qishik said after a few minutes. "Pull!" He ordered. I unison, the entire flotilla, began pulling on the superstructure with full power on the shipyards built above the mining world. The superstructure slowly drifted towards them on one side as the other neared the planet. Within seven hours, the other half of the superstructure, ahd gotten close enough where it fell into the gravitational pull of Cardune. The personnel had evacuated three hours into his procedure but he couldn't risk such a vital target in their rear being left alone and watched as it crashed into the planet. "Turn off!" He ordered.
"Sir, our scanners are detecting several ships in our rear. They will exit in five minutes." His radar officer informed. "How many?" he asked. The officer gulped "four star destroyer sized vessels and a dreadnought sized one."
"Get us out of here!" He shouted. "We don't have clearance!" His pilot informed. "All ships move to the other side of the planet." Was his second order. "What's happening?!" Leia demanded. "Death squadron. They seem to have caught up to us." He informed her, trying to keep his cool. "What?!" She said in a panik. "Divert all power to engines and charge up hyperdrives. Go to the other side of the planet." He ordered. "Understood." She replied with more composure. He could feel a dark presence in his rear approaching. It was Darth Vader. 'So be it.' He thought to himself.
The fleet made its way to the other side of Cardune but couldn't make the jump. "What's wrong?" He asked. "Sir, they seem to have an interdiction field." The navigational officer informed him as the prow of the Executor became visible. "What is the interdiction field in?" He asked. "In the Executor." The dreaded response came. Leia too heard it over the terminal. "Override the safety protocols and make the jump." He ordered. "Are you mad?! We might all die!" Leia shouted. "Might!" He emphasized. "We'll die in hyperspace, escape or be sent to Mustafar. I want to die quickly." He joked.
The technicians took several minutes to override the protocol for the entire fleet. By that time the executor was approaching his fleet and preparing to fire.
Sigil took a meditative stance and began focusing on directing the fleet through hyperspace via the force. He focused all his strength into giving the ships safe passage through hyperspace. Directing his messages to Lieutenant Qishik who relayed it to the rest of the fleet.
Their unguided journey through hyperspace lasted a day before Sigil sensed a mass shadow and had the fleet drop out. They dropped out of hyperspace in front of a star and two disabled fleets from the clone wars era who were frozen in its orbit. "A solar flare." He theorized. The republic fleet had its rear to the star and were closer as such they most likely were permanently disabled.
"Order attack group Mynock to abandon their search and come to our location. I have found what I have been searching for." He told Qishik. In front of him stood an entire separatist fleet. After a quick observation, he determined a fleet of one Providence class dreadnought, three providence class cruisers, one Lucrehulk class battleship, six Recusant class light destroyers, nine Munificent class frigates along with four DH-Omni supply ships in the rear who still stood facing a flotilla of three dozen Venators. "Prepare all droids and technicians for boarding!" He yelled with childlike joy.
The entire fleet followed his orders with enthusiasm. Such a fleet could guarantee a victory in any battle.
While the hardware was being inspected and rebooted, Leia decided to speak with Sigil in person. He could sense her presence growing closer and using the force, slid the door to his quarters open. "Hello Uncle." She greeted in an informal manner now that they were in private. "Hello Leia." He greeted back with a warm smile. "So this fleet is why you disobeyed orders?" She questioned, more to herself than him. "Precisely! The firepower, cargo capacity and Fighter wing, a campaign could be waged against the empire through conventional means while retaining a fighting chance for the alliance." He said. She nodded.
"This fleet is the largest we have at our disposal and it shall be named accordingly." He continued. "Got a name yet?" She questioned. "I was thinking of fleet 'Indomitable'." He replied. She rolled her eyes. "Sounds a bit too confident." She remarked. "You would need a pair of Executor class super star destroyers to bring this down." He defended. "You do you." She said,
"You seem to have something on your mind." Leia noted as he was staring into nothing. "It's Revan. Her presence is now cold, bitter and burning with rage. A mirror of Vader." He said, grasping with his right hand. "But it isn't your fault." Leia tried to reassure. "Oh but is." He insisted. "My political career and constant bickering with politicians, made me see that they all were driven here by my emotions and desires so I decided and wrongfully shun all my emotions to the side as duty came first. My duty to the people of Naboo, left me no time for anything personal. After your late father approached me about resisting the empire, I agreed and drowned myself into living a double life as an arms supplier and senator. This as you could guess, strained my relationship with my sister to no end and now, this is what I have to deal with." He explained with his gaze to the floor still. The regret and guilt were eating him alive on a daily basis and to avoid the pain, he pushed her even further to the back of his mind. A single tear threatened to fall but he held it in. 'Not now!' He berated himself on the inside. "All of this." He said, suspending his lightsaber in front of him "Is because I went after Tano." He stated before the lightsaber fall to the ground with a clatter.
"How did Fulcrum cause this?" Leia asked. "You might wanna take a seat. It's quite a tail." He recommended. Leia took a seat in front of him and waited. Sigil finally lifted his gaze up and faced her. "Well I used to be a bounty hunter and assassin who specialized in marksmanship. I went by the nickname 'Night Haunter'." He began. She nodded; she knew this part of the story except for his insignia. "I wore a skull mask with blue lights in the eye sockets." He said, turning to look at his old helmet. "You wore that?" Shs asked in disbelief. He nodded. "So anyways, it was one morning that I was scrolling through the holo net to find any potential bounties when I received a call from a special client…" He continued. "Palpatine?" She inquired. "Palpatine." He nodded. "I now know that it was Palpatine. He requested for Ahsoka to be captured, tortured and turned to the darkside. He gave me three months." He elaborated. "What for?" She thought out loud. "If I had to guess, it might be an inquisitor." He guessed. "After the call ended, 5cn came and informed me of an intruder in the air vents of the Void Dragon. So I leave the ship and lock it fully. Once at a safe distance, I released the sleeping into the ship." He continued. She had a look of shock on her face. The Millenium Falcon was certainly a sleeper ship but his' was something else entirely. 'Can't go wrong with a Corellian design.' She thought. Seeing as the backbone of the alliance's fleet was made up of Corellian made CR-90 class corvettes, she wasn't wrong. "In short, I send 5cn to put the body in safe containment ahead of myself. Upon my return, I interrogated her on helping with force visions Revan was having. She recommended Jedi training. There are some parts which I rather not get into but in short, it ended with me departing Mandalore early during the siege of Mandalore in the final days of the clone wars. I was instructed by an ancestor to go to the Adegan system for training to banish their rival from Revan's body. After a year of training, we took on the effort of banishing the dead Sith through battle. It ended with her redeeming herself but the whole experience left our souls bound through the force and now she lives rent free in my head." He ended the last part with a chuckle expecting a response and he was right. He didn't identify any words but muffled bickering in its place.
He looked back at Leia who was slack jawed. "I have known you all my life uncle and only now you are telling me this!" She said. "Everybody has their secrets dear." He reminded. She had some choice words but decided against their use. "Just how many stories do you have under that sleeve?" She stated. "Many." He replied in a monotone voice.
Hus holo terminal beeped. He stood up from his seat and turnes it on. On the other side, came up his lead technician; a Duros named 'Cosy Dar'. "Admiral." He saluted. "Lieutenant." He said, and both he and Leia saluted him back. "Sir, this fleet needs about three months to be comabt ready again." He informed. "We can't hang out fot three months." Leia jumped in. "You are right. Lieutenant, you are to remain along with two supply ships in the system and refurbish this fleet. Report back every three days." He stated. "Yes sir." Dar said, ending the transmition.
"You should get some rest. We'll depart in eight hours for Mimban." He suggested. Leia nodded and headed out of her quarters. Picking up his communicator, he contacted Qishik. "Liuetenant, Inform all crews that we will be departing for Mimban within eight hours. Leave two of the class fours here with the technicians." He ordered. The reply was instant "Yes sir.".